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Group Captain "Wizard" Gainsforth
In The Case of the Black Gauntlet, Group Captain "Wizard" Gainsforth was the director of the Crown Film Corporation who sought to engage Biggles as a technical advisor in a film about air combat. During World War Two, Gainsforth had been in charge of the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit. After the war, he was appointed to the Crown Film Corporation where he intended to make a film for the International Peace Film Festival at Geneva. Gainsforth planned to depict the heartbreak of war in order to promote peace and wanted some very realistic air combat sequences. Gainsforth managed to persuade Biggles to act as technical advisor for the film. Biggles also yielded to his pleas and flew a climactic air combat sequence opposite the star Thea Hertz when the designated stunt pilot Max Peterson failed to turn up. In the event, the film went well and won the top prize at the festival. Only later, after the film was released, did Gainsforth admit that he had employed a certain amount of subterfuge during the whole thing. To Gainsforth, as a film maker, "the film comes first". Gainsforth had been at Marham during the war the day Biggles had shot down a Spitfire flown by a German pilot fighting under false colours. A black gauntlet had been thrown clear of the wreckage of the crashed aircraft which Gainsforth kept. Later, when planning the film, Gainsforth learnt that the downed German pilot was in fact the brother of Thea Hertz. She herself had witnessed the incident as she was working at Marham (although she was at that time a German spy). When Thea Hertz was signed on as the main star for the film, she suggested that Biggles be the technical advisor. Gainsforth suspected she might have an ulterior motive linked to the Marham incident but was not sure what it was. In scheming to get Biggles into the film, Gainsforth sent the black gauntlet anonymously to him to pique his interest. Subsequently, he arranged for the stunt Messerschmitt Me 109 in the film to be painted with the device of a black gauntlet knowing this would further excite Biggles' curiosity. When it came time to film the climactic air combat sequence, Gainsforth arranged for the male stunt pilot Max Peterson to absent himself, and then pleaded with Biggles to take his place in order to ensure that the film could be completed on time. True enough, Biggles had a feeling the puzzle of the black gauntlet would be solved by the flight, acceded to doing so. It was only after the flight began that Thea told Biggles that the German pilot killed over Marham was her brother. It was his gauntlet. Her guns had been loaded with live ammunition and she intended to avenge him! Biggles desparately evaded her live bullets, while time and again outmanoeuvring her in order to persuade her to her senses. When this failed, he was forced to fly low to evade her. He spotted and managed to duck beneath some telegraph cables but Thea failed to react in time and crashed. There was one final subterfuge that Gainsforth had to admit to. He had, of course, guessed that Thea's anger with Biggles would make her fly superbly but he had not expected that it would go all the way to attempted murder. On the morning of the final scene, he had been shocked to discover that Thea's aircraft had been loaded with live ammunition. He secretly had them unloaded and replaced with blanks. However, he refrained from telling Biggles or Thea about it so that the flying would be all the more realistic. Category:People Category:Biggles characters Category:Air Police era characters